Torchlight 2 trailer reveals the Papillon. Run for the hills!

Hide your kids, hide your wife from Runic's in-game studio mascot

Runic Games has been periodically teasing the pets you'll be able to bring with you when Torchlight 2 launches, but the company's saved an in-house favorite for last. Longtime Runic fans will be familiar with Falcor, the studio's almost-annoyingly-cute in-house mascot – who's just made the transition from “sitting on laps and pretending to understand videogames” to “being in videogames and probably still not understanding them.” Come on, face facts, almost no videogames are designed with canine comprehension in mind. Anyway, here's Falcor's in-game likeness, the Papillon.

Above: Scream, scream for your life, scream while you still have breath

We've heard the Torchlight 2 release date teased for a while now, and while the studio's still not quite ready to mark its calendar, it's promised to release as soon as possible – as long as that doesn't mean stepping out directly into Diablo III's shadow. Which is surely selling Falcor a bit short: when one side deploys a weapon of such devastating cuteness, what competitor's really going to come back with, “yeah, well, I haven't shaved”? At this rate they're just going to have to let the games speak for themselves or some such craziness.